***

Chapter 13:

The Slayer

***

Consciousness returned slowly to Brynn. Bright lights stung her eyes, and she struggled to her feet, leaning hard against the glass walls of her cage. Her whole body hurt, like her bones had been replaced by molten rock. Hundreds of images whirled through her mind. A battle with a dead god, with herself, and Imoen -but not Imoen- helping her, giving her the strength to defeat the specter of her dead sire, and then... and then emptiness, and a blackness so deep that it hurt. She left cold and incomplete, like something precious had been stolen from her. She caught sight of Irenicus, standing like a cold statue at the bottom of the steps.

"What... what have you done to me?" Her sluggish tongue felt like dry leather in her mouth and her words made her head throb. "Tell me what you've done to me."

"I have taken everything that made you special," Irenicus replied evenly. "I have taken your very soul."

Brynn's knees gave way and she sank back down to the floor of her glass prison. "My soul..." she echoed. Was that was what missing? Was that what made her feel so empty and dead inside? She broke into a cold sweat. "You... you can't have. You can't," she croaked. "You... you're lying..."

Irenicus regarded her with a disgusted sneer. "I have," he said. He turned away from her and started walking away. "Bodhi, dispose of them all."

Bodhi's shrill laugh sent shivers up Brynn's spine. "This will be fun!" she crowed.

Turning back one last time, Irenicus said, "Good bye, spawn of Bhaal, we shall not meet again." "No..." Brynn whispered. "Come back here..." She slumped backward, unable to even sit up anymore. The coldness in her grew and the emptiness overtook her from the inside out.

***

The next time Brynn awoke she didn't feel quite so bad. The blinding pain had faded to a dull ache, but the emptiness in her that she had come to realize was the absence of her soul was... she couldn't think about it without having her vision cloud to black again. She wanted to die and just get it over with, but she knew she couldn't. She couldn't let Irenicus win.

"Brynn? Jaheira! She's awake!"

Lethargically, Brynn turned her head and saw Imoen leaning over her. Her face was gaunt and so tired, but it was still Imoen. "Where are we?" Brynn asked, trying to sit up. A half dozen pairs of hands pushed her back down again.

"Do not move," Jaheira said. "Stay as you are."

"Where are we?" Brynn asked again. She saw only the anxious faces of her friends and the heavy stone blocks of the ceiling high above. Frantic she scanned the group for Yoshimo and found his missing. "Where's Yoshimo?" she demanded, pushing past the hands that held her down. "Where is he?"

"Minsc hold her still!" Jaheira shouted, grabbing Brynn by the shoulder. Minsc took hold of her two and together the druid and the ranger pressed her back down against the cold stone. "Stay still!" Jaheira snapped. "Now damn you, listen to what I say! You are ill, Brynn, weakened and ill and you must stay still until you are well enough to get up again." She took a deep, calming breath. "We are in the maze beneath Spellhold, once a testing ground to see in patients were eligible for release and now Bodhi's playground. She has set us loose in here for her own entertainment, and that is her folly. If we can win past the beasts she has left in here, and the traps she has set we will be free, but for now you must lay still."

"Where is Yoshimo?" Brynn asked again.

"Not here," Anomen said coldly. "I imagine he is counting his reward as we speak."

"No," Brynn insisted, struggling out of the arms that held her down. She got to her feet and stumbled, but kept her balance.

"Brynn!" Jaheira growled, "lay down!"

"I'm fine!" Brynn snapped back. She gave Jaheira a warning look turned to Anomen and met his brown eyes. "You don't understand! You don't know what happened at all."

"I know we were betrayed, and that the thief betrayed us!" Anomen retorted. "I know enough!"

Brynn clenched her hands into fists. "Shut up!" she yelled. "You don't know anything! He had no choice!"

Anomen opened his mouth to argue but Jaheira interrupted, "Both of you stop it!" she ordered. "This is not the time for arguing!"

"Jaheira is correct," Mazzy put in. She reached up and put a restraining hand on Brynn's elbow. "What we need right now is calm."

"Calm?" Brynn demanded. "Tell me how I can be calm! Irenicus stole my soul!"

"And whose fault is that?" Anomen countered.

Brynn felt a strange rage build inside of her. White hot and terrible it threatened to consume her. It terrified her, and so she forced it back, but it still churned deep within her, only barely contained. "You don't understand," she repeated through clenched teeth.

Minsc approached and patted her on the shoulder. "It will be all right, little Brynn. Here, Boo will comfort you."

Brynn shrugged away from him and whirled around. The rage began to build within her again and without even quite knowing what she was doing she punched him in the temple and sent him reeling back a few steps. One of his feet caught on a crack in the stone floor and sent him sprawling onto his rear. "You big, stupid freak!" Brynn shouted. "What does your damn rat know?"

Minsc lay propped up on his elbows, looking up at Brynn with such confusion in his eyes that it made the rage die away in an instant. Brynn felt sick and tears stung her eyes. What had she done?

Her hands shaking, she knelt down on the ground and wrapped her arms around the tall ranger's neck. "Gods, I'm so sorry, Minsc. There's something wrong with me," she sobbed. "I'm all torn apart and I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."

Unhesitatingly Minsc enfolded her in a great bear hug. "It's okay, little Brynn," he said heartily. "I forgive you, and so does Boo." He helped her to her feet and patted her on the back. "Don't cry, Misnc will mop the floor with the buttocks of that evil wizard!"

"It's not okay," Brynn protested. "It's not!" She scrubbed her hands across her face and tried to collect herself to little avail. "It's like there's a pit in me and at the very bottom is this... thing and... no, never mind that. We don't have time for this right now."

"Brynn..." Jaheira began.

"No, we don't have time," Brynn returned, "I mean it. I don't feel like I did before, I'm all right, and... and I can keep the darkness back. Come on, we need to get out of this place." She looked around the room and spotted their gear piled in a heap on the stone. "Well, at least Bodhi gave us our stuff back," she muttered. She walked over to the pile and sifted through it until she found her katanas -still in their scabbards and attached to the scabbard belt- and belted them around her waist. "Get your stuff... I want to be out of this pit as soon as possible."

***

The Blades made their way through the dank, dirty, monster-filled corridors of the maze beneath Spellhold. Slowly Brynn's headache faded, but the rage within her kept growing and growing until it threatened to consume her. All the damn puzzles, all the damn monsters, all the damn... everything. She had thought the worst part was the emptiness that came after she awoke, but the rage... the rage was worse than any emptiness because everything she had ever believed cried out against it, and yet she could not deny that some part of her wanted to welcome it. Some part of her wanted to accept the rage with open arms and let it let it engulf her.

She thought it was sweet when Imoen tried to comfort her, sweet in the sense that it was futile. What did Imoen know any way? Imoen had never battled the darkness like Brynn had, because Brynn had protected her dear friend from the things that would tarnish her innocence. All Imoen had to deal with was the emptiness, and so was lucky in a way that she could never even comprehend.

Brynn needed for everything to be all right, she needed someone to tell her that the anger in her would go away and she would be herself again come sunrise. That had always been what Yoshimo had done for her, but she didn't know where he was. Every time she looked to her right she expected to see him flash her a scoundrel's grin, but all she saw was the cold stone of the walls. It was unfair. She had done nothing to deserve any of the things that had happened to her since her arrival at Spellhold, nothing at all. She had fought so hard and long and when she needed it, the man she loved couldn't be there by her side because of some twist of fate. No, not even that. Because of a spell, a damn spell.

She shook her head sharply. There were other things that she had to think about if she wanted to get out of the maze and live to kill Irenicus. A deep breath calmed her a little, but the rage was still there, like a living thing it whispered to her just beneath the surface of her mind. It had a garbled, angry voice, barely audible against the background hum of her thoughts and the echoes of footsteps in the corridor.

The voice of Brynn's rage fell silent for a moment when she rounded a corner and saw Bodhi approach. To Brynn that pale face was unmistakable. It was the face of one of the people who had caused all of Brynn's suffering, the face of the woman who unjustly held Imoen's soul. It was a target for her rage

"You have done well," Bodhi purred, grinning so that her fangs showed between her lips. Behind her two of her vampiric minions materialized and aped her demonic grin. "But I have no time to play with you anymore, so I'll have to kill you now." She came forward taking long, arrogant strides.

Brynn uttered only one word, "Attack!" and behind her the Blades drew their weapons and charged forward.

The rage sang of blood in Brynn's ears. It promised quick victory if only she would give in. It promised power like she could never have known before, and the protests of what was left of her soul were overwhelmed by the shouts of her rage. She roared, animal like, and let the rage take her. It filled her until it felt like it would pour out her mouth and eyes, and behind it came wave after wave of all the power it had promised and a dark taint unrivaled in its evil. Her hair stood on end like a golden flame, and it wavered in the currents of power that flowed around her. Her tunic and trousers, and even her scabbard belt burned to dust right off her body.

Even as Brynn struck and tore Bodhi's two minions to shreds with her katanas the taint of the power made her feel sick to her stomach, but she was no longer in control of herself and could not have stopped even if she wanted to. Her rage ruled her, it guided her blades and feet and put an unearthly strength behind her blows.

Bodhi reeled backward, her eyes wide with fear and surprise. "This..." she stammered, "this isn't what was supposed to happen!" She staggered backward a few steps, then puffed into a cloud of fog. In a second she was gone.

The song of Brynn's rage slowly faded away and died, and she slumped to the floor, shaking and shivering as sweat poured over her body. The stone was cold against her bare skin and it seemed to bring her mind back to where she was, it cooled her rage and soothed the sick feeling that brought the taste of bile to her lips. She didn't dare look up, she didn't dare turn to see the expressions on her friends faces. She couldn't bear to see the disgust and horror they must have felt.

"Never again," she said, more to herself than the others. "Never again, I won't let it take me again." She spoke with all her heart, but she knew that now that she had tasted the sickly-sweet power of rage she might not be able to resist the temptation to use it again.

to be continued

***

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As the lights come up an unfamiliar girl is standing on the stage, still a blonde, still blue eyed, but distinctly less muscular and a touch shorter than the ever-grouching Chryseis de Curion. She wears a pair of blue jeans and a ribbed blue cotton turtleneck shirt. She smiles broadly and waves one small hand.

"Hi!" she chirps brightly. "Since I doubt you recognize me I'll introduce myself. I'm your author -or maybe more accurately, her avatar since she's the one doing the typing- known here at FFN as The Blue Sorceress. You can just call me 'master' or Blue if you prefer." She chuckled briefly and cracks her knuckled. "Where to begin? Let's see... I'm sorry this last chapter took so long to get out to you. Several things have gotten in my way lately, not the least of which was a trip to Washington D.C. with my AP history class. That took a while and I had no time to write while I was there. Add on to that a serious case of no-time-to-write-itis, and the fact that this last chapter was a little hard to deal with and you've got yourself one long wait. A couple of things came up while I was writing." She scans the audiences curiously for a moment. "I don't know if you're out there right now, but a reviewer, Bohki, I believe her name was brought up some questions about my use of Japanese in the story. According to my Japanese/English dictionary I am using the word 'aijin' correctly, but if you've got a different, better source let me know, I'd appreciate the help. Also, so far as Yoshimo and Haer'Dalis getting along the way I've got things figured out Haer'Dalis wasn't quite as clued into the whole treachery issue until it was too late. He knew Yoshimo was hiding something at first, but he just figured it was that Yoshimo had feelings for Brynn, therefore he just sort of didn't look any farther for a reason. And yes, Brynn is über poweful, but that's just when she's really angry. I look at it this way: when she gets furious like that she's tapping into that litte extra god-powered oomph in her and that's whay she kicks so much enemy behind."

Blue shrugs. "I think that's about it," she says. "Oh! And in case you were wondering, Chryseis is gone for the duration." She smiles a wisked little smile. "She complained too much and I decided to give her a little of the action she'd been asking for. Well, ta-ta for now, I've got history homework to do!"

With that the lights fade and Blue disappears backstage.